The Anniversary
by starboarder
Summary: On their first anniversary, Jane and Edward travel to Moor House where they are both forced to confront the year of Jane's life in which Edward had no part. NOW COMPLETE!
1. Part 1: A Journey

"Here they are at last!"

As she and her husband passed through the wicket and up the narrow path, Jane could hear Diana's animated voice issuing from within the cottage, accompanied by Carlo's excited barking and the sudden flutter of a window curtain as if someone had rushed from thence only a second before.

"It seems we are expected," she said, giving the arm she held an affectionate squeeze that did but a pallid justice to the joy that flooded through her at the idea of her favorite people in the world being so soon gathered all together here, in this small house in the middle of a great, lonely moor. Yes, here they were at last.

Jane had become so accustomed to having to put up with a great deal of coaxing to secure her husband's company for a mere outing to Millcote – for, though he had become reconciled to weekly attendance at the parish church, in the year since their marriage he had not been able to reconcile his pride to moving openly in society where he dreaded being the subject of gossip and pity – so that, when Edward had assented readily to her tentative suggestion of a journey to Yorkshire, she had been surprised and delighted.

"I know you must wish to see your cousins, my dear, and I daresay a trip away from Ferndean will be welcome and do you no end of good."

"Darling, you mustn't tease so! You know how fond I am of our home, leaky roof and all – but I confess I do long to see Diana and Mary. It is coming up on a year now since Diana's visit, and longer still since I saw Mary, and of course I should love to see dear Moor House again."

"Well, you had best write to them, then, and find out when we are welcome."

The reply from her cousins had arrived promptly and had enthusiastically bid them come as soon as they possibly could, suggesting a date that fell a mere week after the letter was received. Jane had but one reservation – the date Diana and Mary proposed was also the date of her and Edward's first anniversary.

"Perhaps," she had said after reading the letter to him, "you would prefer to postpone our visit? Perhaps you would rather we spend that day alone?"

"What would please _you_ better? You must decide. Would your cousins' presence be unwelcome on that day?"

"For my part I shouldn't mind…" she began, intending to press him again for his own preference, but he interrupted,

"Then it is settled. We will spend our anniversary in Yorkshire, at the cottage you have spoken of to me so often. That will make you happy, will it not?" He looked and spoke with such eagerness that for a moment she wondered whether he had in fact formulated this plan himself and contrived it so that the idea seemed her own.

"Yes," she said, reaching for his hand. "Yes, it will."

"It will be the honeymoon we never took," he pronounced, smiling. "We shall travel together to this distant clime, and I shall depend upon you to show me all the great landmarks and attractions of the district – we must make a pilgrimage to every stone, every scraggly hedgerow you admired. I intend to fully immerse myself in this Northern retreat of yours, down to the last clump of heath."

And so it was that they had journeyed together along the same roads Jane had traveled alone a year earlier, and on the afternoon of the third day arrived at the Whitcross stop, from which they'd walked the last mile over the heath to Moor House.

"The air here is marvelous," he'd remarked, drawing it in with long, deep breaths. "So dry – one can feel the vastness of this place in the very gusts of wind."

He did not mention Ferndean, but she knew it was present in his mind as he filled his lungs again and again while the wind tugged at his blue-black hair and a glorious expression of freedom alighted on his face. This untamed country was utterly unlike Ferndean, where the air was dense, cloistered round by trees, comforting and protective in summer, but suffocating as a dark harbinger-fog in the lightless months.

"Yes, there is scarcely a tree in sight but for the shadows of them on the hills yonder. I suppose to the birds we must appear as mere specks." And then she felt a twinge as she recalled three tormented days when the very openness of the place had been a threat, when the faraway trees had been as the symbols of dreams unattainable. She wondered whether that was how he regarded Morton – the place she had fled to, the place she had forsaken him for, exposing herself to the elements with all the abandon of Lear rather than stay another moment by his side.

But his expression was untroubled, his brow smooth, his side pressed close and unresisting against hers, and when they came in sight of the cottage Jane's doubts vanished and she experienced only the sweet pleasure of having him with her in this wild place she had grown to love.

The door opened before they had reached it, and Diana hurried out, arms extended. At the sight of her Jane broke from her husband, half-laughing, half-crying her joyful greetings as she embraced and kissed her cousin whom she regarded as dearly as a sister.

When she had hugged Jane several times and exclaimed at how well and rosy she looked, how fine was her lavender traveling dress, how becoming her hair (which she now wore gathered back and twisted into an elegant knot, having at last abandoned her modest governess plaits for a style more suitable to a gentleman's wife), Diana turned to her cousin's husband.

"It _is_ good to see you again, sir," she said warmly, grasping his proffered hand with real affection. "Welcome to Moor House."

"A pleasure to meet you again, Miss Rivers, thank you."

Diana laughed. "Miss Rivers! I am never called that but by the parson. You must tell him we don't stand on ceremony here, Jane. We are quite shamelessly informal."

A good-humored smile lit Edward's face. "I do not think I shall find it too hard to adapt, shall I Jane?"

"No, I daresay you shall not," she said, knowingly, and she smiled too, recalling his preference, in the early days of their acquaintance, for dispensing with the formalities that convention deemed necessary between employer and employee, and also the readiness with which she'd complied, with a secret thrill at this gesture of intimacy.

"Then," he said, speaking once more to their hostess, "I will take the liberty of addressing you henceforward by your Christian name, but only so long as it is reciprocated!" Diana had the immediate opportunity of gratifying his request as Mary appeared in the doorway.

"Ah, here is my sister Mary. Mary, come and meet Edward, Jane's husband."

Mary's greeting was equally warm, if not as verbose as her sister's, and Jane could see Edward's relief at her cousins' easy acceptance of him, despite his earlier dismissal in the coach of any need for reassurance on his part about the kindness and generosity they would be sure to show him. She was very much aware that the idea of St. John - and his proposal, never rejected outright by her, if never accepted - clouded every interaction Edward had with the sisters, and she understood he had to make certain for himself that they held no grudge against him for their brother's loss.

"Come – come into the parlor. After your long journey you must want some tea or a little hot negus, to be sure."

They were ushered inside, their cloaks and hats taken by a beaming Hannah, who welcomed 'Miss Jane' almost as eagerly as her cousins had, and curtsied politely to Edward, greeting him with a level "How d'ye do, sir."

It was strange beyond expression for Jane to be sitting in the familiar parlor, where she had sat so often studying German with Mary and Diana, or reading Hindustanee with St. John, or engaging in any number of various household tasks in the performance of which she could momentarily forget the persistent aching of her heart, which no amount of familial tenderness could quite allay.

Yet, apart from St. John's absence, the house seemed unchanged. While the refreshments were being got ready and Diana and Mary laid the parlor table with the tea service, Jane described the room to Edward. Looking around her at the furnishings, the view out of the windows, and even her cousins themselves who, like her, had not turned extravagant in the face of their newly acquired wealth and still dressed in modest good taste, she found there were no tangible signs of the year that had passed. And yet what a change that invisible year had brought her! The bliss, the comfort she had known in that time was reaffirmed and born anew in her with every heartbeat they shared, as the air that sustained them both passed in and out of them, spreading out into the ether only to be inhaled again, and co-mingled in their lungs. He was in every breath she took.

And the sight of him, sitting here by the windows where St. John had sat with such cold austerity, speaking so earnestly to her cousins, a half-smile hovering on his scarred face, filled her with an unspeakable sense of gratitude. For it was also here that St. John had so nearly claimed her, where she had so nearly - but for the manifestation of a phenomenon half-natural, half-witchery - lost forever the warm, animated, endlessly beloved man whose hand was now lifting the painted china teacup with such carefulness to his lips.

She had fled from this house to find him, never hoping, never even dreaming that she would return to it as his wife. And now here he was: the undreamed dream, the unhoped-for hope at the end of her journey.

If Diana and Mary had worried that their guests would be too wearied from their traveling to take much pleasure in the evening meal or partake with any kind of enthusiasm, a few minutes sufficed to prove their concerns unfounded.

Jane was luminous. Not a shadow of the three-day journey hung over her, not a trace of tiredness subdued her spirits. Conversation flowed easily from her lips, her face glowed with earnest delight as she spoke, and her happiness only increased with every word – every witty anecdote or expression of opinion from her husband that displayed his intelligent and insightful nature. Edward was in his most genial, convivial company humor, engaging Diana and even the soft-spoken Mary in all manner of discourse, eliciting from them both laughter and awe and, as the evening progressed, no small amount of respect. Set at ease by the balanced mental sharpness and sensitivity of the present company, he was in his element. Jane compared his manners with her cousins to his behavior at the house party she had witnessed two years back, and found that, if he was more charming now, his conversation more compelling and more brilliant, it was because the charm was unforced, the dialogue uncolored by the blandishments which were not only encouraged but expected among people of so-called fine society. And if the board here was smaller and the fare more humble, if the company was less glamorous, it was also less supercilious, less shallow and more enlightened.

St. John's name came up only twice in the course of the meal, to Jane's silent relief. Once she inquired – as she was bound to do out of familial concern – whether anything had been heard from him lately, whether he had settled well in Calcutta, and if so, how he was bearing up against the climate. But her cousins had had no news, and after uttering a few words of hope for his wellbeing, the subject was quickly abandoned, having drawn the brightness from their eyes, and cast Edward into palpable silence.

The second time St. John was mentioned it was only in reference to a friend of his, who had paid the sisters a visit two weeks previously. Mr. Wharton, in addition to having attended Cambridge with St. John, was a fellow clergyman and had received his training at the same college. Though devout, Mr. Wharton did not share his friend's zeal for the evangelical mission, and was content to practice his profession within the bounds of England. He had traveled to Morton as a favor to his absent friend, but - according to Diana - had such pleasing manners and was in general so agreeable that the three soon felt like old acquaintances. It had been decided upon that Mary and Diana should go to visit him later in the summer, and they were full of excitement at the prospect both of seeing the place where their brother had lived and been educated, and of seeing his friend again.

"Mr. Wharton spoke so warmly of Cambridge - its tranquility and greenness and grace - it shall be a delight to compare the reality with the vision his words conjured in our minds." In all their talk of Mr. Wharton, Mary had been unusually forthcoming, or so it seemed to Jane, but she resolved to keep her suspicions to herself, at least until she might have the opportunity of slipping Diana a sly inquiry.

"Do you know Cambridge at all, sir?" Diana was asking, addressing Edward.

"No, not well. I have only passed through it on a few occasions."

"Edward was an Oxford man," Jane explained.

"Ah, a rival!" Diana spoke teasingly, but Jane did not miss the implication in her husband's tone when he echoed,

"Yes. A rival."

"Well," she interrupted cheerily, "if you are to travel so far south I shall insist that you both stay a few days with us. Should they not, Darling?" And the conversation turned to Ferndean and Edward was safe.

Jane was so carefully attuned to him she could discern the minutest change in mood without looking at him, almost without hearing his voice. She had learned to sense and soon to divert these fluctuations of humor very early on in their marriage, when he had suffered recurring plagues of regret at his perceived inadequacy as a husband, his inability to protect and care for her whom he loved best. Through patience and reassurance and the daily proof of her adamantine, unalloyed love, these doubts had passed, but still Jane kept a watchful eye in order that she might nip any vestige of depression in the bud. All through dinner she was exceedingly attentive to him, but her attention was of such a soft and subtle nature that it was scarcely apparent. If her cousins had known her less, and were of the gossiping sort, they might have remarked that she played her husband with all the deftness of a master violinist – speaking to him a low word or pressing his hand gently if he lapsed into a few moments' silence – drawing from him a smile, a murmured reply, before returning to the present topic of conversation.

And, though their words were far from malicious, her cousins could not altogether avoid some comment on the meal's proceedings, and Jane, chancing to overhear a few fragments of their talk as she headed for the kitchen with the intention of helping with the clearing up, stopped outside in the shadows and listened.

"Were it him she were running from when she turned up here?"

"Yes Hannah, I believe it was. But you mustn't speak of that. It can only cause pain to them both."

"Indeed, Miss!" Hannah replied, indignant. "I'm sure I wouldn't ha' dreamed of doing such a thing."

"Whatever their past troubles, she is clearly devoted to him," Mary put in, gently.

"And he to her," Diana added. "I never saw a man behave with such tenderness as he does to our Jane. Why, he makes poor St. John seem quite rude in his manners."

"We oughtn't to compare him so often with St. John," Mary said, with a sigh that did not admonish, but seemed to.

"No, you are right - we oughtn't."

"It would be enough that he has made Jane so happy - I should like him for that, if for no other reason."

"Yes, she is a new creature. She was a dear thing before, and now - look how she has bloomed!"

"But indeed, I do truly like her husband for himself."

"So do I."

"Well, he is a gentleman," Hannah said stoutly, as if that settled the matter – which it did.

Jane blushed like a rose in the dark and crept back to where Edward sat at the table, joining him just before her cousins re-entered with a decanter of Madeira and glasses, all smiles, their eyes shining at her in the candlelight.

She felt she could have stayed up half the night talking, but even so – when the wine had been drunk and all that was left in the glasses were the ruby dregs, and the last mellow warmth from the fire had dissipated, and Diana and Mary rose, proclaiming the evening over, and Jane and Edward rose after them – she felt the pull of sleep in her limbs and noted the exaggerated relaxation in Edward's posture and felt she could imagine nothing better than to curl up beside him in the soft white sheets and sleep until slaked slumber woke her.

The house was sunk in distilled darkness, but the candles at the table still burned bright. Diana and Mary took one candle between them and left Jane the other. She took up the light one hand, and her husband's arm in the other, and they followed their hostesses upstairs.


	2. Part 2: Jane's gift

Her cousins had far too much delicacy to openly presume upon the sleeping arrangements of her marriage, and so had readied each of the two spare rooms for double occupation.

"We thought you might like to have your old room, Jane, though I daresay it will seem small to you now," Diana said with a smile as they reached the second floor landing. "And the neighboring chamber has been aired out for your and Edward's use as well."

Jane assured her cousins that the accommodations were perfectly adequate and after she had kissed them both and thanked them again, they bid each other good night. Mary and Diana retired to their chambers, but she and Edward remained, hesitating outside the door of the extra room that had been prepared for them.

"Perhaps I ought to stay here for a time," he began, regretting the words almost the moment they left his mouth.

"Yes, perhaps it would be better," she agreed, with equal reluctance.

She turned the handle and the door swung in and the light of her lone candle lit only dimly the chamber which yawned like a cavern in primeval darkness, skin-pricklingly cold. For the first time since their arrival that afternoon she shared her husband's awkwardness, suspended like an electric charge in the air. The room was St. John's.

When she had lived at Moor House as one of the family – after her true identity and relation was disclosed – she had only rarely entered the room. St. John himself had occupied the room only when his visits lasted so late into the evening as to disallow time for him to return to his parsonage at Morton for the night, and kept only a few personal items there, most of which were books that had once belonged to his father. Jane could just barely make them out now, resting on their shelf on the far wall, lined up in a neat row – still orderly, even if they were fated never to be opened again; he had not been able to take them with him to India. There was little else left of St. John's in the room, as far as she could tell through the gloom, but something of him – of his unsettling, steadfast, icy manner – remained, making the freshly-swept and tidied space seem stark and unwelcoming. She could sense his disapproval, feel the harshness of his reprimanding stare as clearly as if he were in the room with them. She shivered.

Edward was standing ramrod-straight and stiff-backed on the threshold, as if he too could sense the forbidding aura emanating from beyond. And was she going to let him wait in this chamber alone in the dark with this terrible icy presence hovering over him, for the mere sake of delicacy? The thought of it made her shiver again and lean into him.

"It is absurd," she said finally. Of course her cousins could not expect her to leave him. And if there was talk, so be it – who was she to care? "I will not let you wait here. Come, we'll go to my room, quietly. It is smaller than this one, but we will manage." At her words he relaxed visibly.

"I only want to be where you are."

She reached out and pulled the door shut behind them.

Once they were safely in Jane's room they paused and smiled sheepishly at one another.

"We do make a pair – creeping about like common burglars." He could hear the grin in her voice, smoothing and warming it.

"Anyone would think it were a capital crime for man and wife to share a bedchamber."

"Anyone would think we were afraid to be alone." Silence. No words, but an unspoken amendment: _But we are_.

He sat on the edge of the narrow bed – almost gingerly, leery of its receptivity to his weight, not wanting to disturb the smooth coverlet and starched sheets. It was Jane's room, kinder and more snug than the other, but it had been hers at a time when just the thought of him would have been sad and overbearing, when his bodily presence would have been dreaded. He could not help but think of this while she busied about, stoking up the fire and lighting the other candles with her taper.

As Jane unpacked their trunks she saw how sensitive her cousins had been in preparing for their visit. The bed had been made with fresh linens, the washstand and basin polished and hung with two towels, the armoire cleared with enough space to hold her and Edward's things together. Moreover they had cleared all surfaces of trinkets, pushed the chair and writing table close alongside the wall so Edward would not knock against or stumble over anything. And the wordlessness with which this thoughtful housekeeping had been accomplished, with no expectation of thanks or even verbal acknowledgement – for her husband's blindness was something she simply didn't discuss – sent a glow of gratitude and love rushing through her. How blessed she was in her family, in her dear cousins who never scolded, never judged, never blamed, only loved. Mary and Diana had been worth all the wait; every one of her eighteen years of orphanhood and loneliness had found redemption in them.

She changed quickly, hanging up her gown in the wardrobe, setting her shoes in a corner out of the way. Then she gave Edward his nightshirt and guided him to the chair by the side of the fireplace, apprising him of the room's layout while he shrugged out of his frock coat and pulled off his boots.

He could undress by himself but he did it slowly. She went to the bed and lay alone and still as one-handed he loosened his cravat and undid each of the buttons of his shirt, one by one, pulling it off, first one sleeve, then the other. Watching him, standing there by the fire, his bare torso glowing gold in the firelight, laced with shadows from the fire's flickering, her mind traveled back to their wedding night a year ago. She recalled it as clearly as if it had been yesterday – their shy words, sitting side by side on the edge of the bed, and the way she'd touched his arm to tell him she was ready.

"Are you afraid of me?" He had asked, feeling the trembling of her fingers, mistaking anticipation for dread.

"No," she'd answered, her voice nearly inaudible as she took in the full sight of him – the strong, broad chest and powerful shoulders, the slim waist, taut with muscle. She saw the scars also, quite plainly by the firelight, still pink and shiny where the skin had healed over. They were neither horrific nor disturbing to her. He had sustained them in the act of rescuing others, and seeing them now, knowing the suffering that lay behind them, only made her love him the more. They were the tangible marks of his kindness – proof of the gentle heart she knew so well.

"No, I am not afraid of you."

And yet he had been afraid: afraid to hold her, certain that his mutilated arm – unhidden now, and bare against her own bare skin – would repel and disgust her. He had offered to place her on his other side, as far as possible from the offending limb. "It is repulsive – awful," he'd muttered bitterly. "I should not blame you if– " But she had cut him off, pulling both his arms around her, making him hold her. His body had been injured, but there was nothing broken, nothing unwhole about his love. His love filled her up so she was brimming over with it, engulfed in it. She had felt it then in the warmth of him, in the waves of heat that emanated from his right palm, pressed close against the small of her back, and in his left arm also, his forearm pressing against her just as protectively: an embrace that left no room for fear.

There was no fear between them now.

His body shook slightly as he lay his discarded clothes over the back of the chair by the hearth and pulled his nightshirt over his head. Though it was June, nights on the moor could still be mercilessly cold, and the cottage, despite its charm, was drafty and its stone walls held in chill better than heat. When he began fumbling with the strings at his throat, Jane intervened gently,

"Darling, you're shivering with cold. Come to bed and let me do that."

He obeyed gladly, feeling his way over to her side, standing patiently while she tied the placket closed, and finally climbing into the bed beside her. She pulled him closer and put his arms around her and gradually his shivering subsided as her small body warmed his. The bed was so narrow that there were only a few inches of space on either side of them, but it made no matter – they were used to sleeping all the night in each other's arms and waking in the morning to find they'd not shifted out of the embrace.

And yet it was extraordinary to her to be lying with him here, in the very place where she had once lost all hope of ever feeling his touch again. And though she knew it would not erase the memory of that painful time, still she hoped that, perhaps, having him beside her now, the thick locks of his hair on the pillow brushing, tickling her cheek, the smell of him – of wool and wood and the faint lavender smell that clung to his nightshirt – would diminish it, render it too weak to move her.

"Are you cold?"

"No. Are you?"

"Not now. Can you sleep?"

"Yes."

"I don't hold you too close?"

"You could never do that."

"I love you."

"I love you."

They slumbered.

She was woken in the morning by a dull thud, shortly followed by a sharp exclamation which caused her to bolt upright in bed.

"Hell and Damnation!"

Her husband had tripped over his boots, groped for something to steady himself, and struck the stand of fire tongs which had fallen over with a clamor only moments before he too succumbed to gravity. He now lay sprawled on the floor by the hearth, cursing fluently.

"Edward, what on earth are you doing?" Jane cried, rushing to assist him as he extricated himself from the pile of boots and fire irons. "You've got cinders all over you! Are you all right?"

"Confounded boots," he muttered irritably as she brushed the ashes from his nightshirt and put the rectified fire tongs out of the way. His display of temper and the lack of any apparent pain in his expression reassured her he was unharmed in all save his pride. Though she judiciously neglected to remind him that he was he who'd left the offending articles directly in the path to the door, she could not resist a little needling as he stood flushed and scowling before her. She was on the point of accusing him of alerting the whole house to their furtive bedfellowship when a tentative knock at the door stopped the words in her mouth.

"Miss Jane, is everything all right?" The anxiety in Hannah's voice could be heard plainly despite the solid oak panel between them.

"Yes Hannah, all is well. A moment of clumsiness, no cause for alarm."

"Very well, ma'am. Shall I have tea brought up?"

"No thank you, Hannah. We shall come down for it, I think."

"As you please, ma'am."

When Jane turned back to him, Edward's ill temper had vanished and he was chuckling softly.

"My poor darling," he said, pulling her to him. "I must have frightened you dreadfully with my lumbering antics. Will you accept a kiss as penance?"

"Certainly, but first you must permit me to inquire why you were heading for the door?"

"I was not, as it happens," he replied with great dignity. "I was attempting to retrieve an article from my waistcoat pocket."

"Shall I fetch it for you?"

"Would you?"

She dutifully went to the chair where his clothes lay, fished in his pockets, and pulled out a small case made of silver, engraved with a pattern of swirls – far too delicate for a gentleman's cigarette case. She smiled.

"Shall I open it?"

"Yes."

Inside was a lady's ivory hair comb, inlaid with pearl. The craftsmanship was exquisite; more than a decorative ornament, it was a work of beauty. She set the case on the chair and turned over the comb in her hand, marveling at its lightness.

"You were meant to receive it yesterday, but I'm afraid what with the business of settling in I quite forgot, so you must forgive its tardiness."

"Darling, it's lovely!"

"I know you don't care for jewels and baubles and such," he continued, "but a man must have something for his wife on her anniversary, mustn't he?"

She went over to him and kissed him in thanks.

"You do like it, truly?"

"Yes, I do! I'm sure I've never had anything so fine. But," she scolded, "_you_ are quite incorrigible, my love. We agreed – no gifts!"

"Ah, but this already belonged to you by rights – it was my mother's, and until recently was kept in my bank vault in London with the other family valuables. I am told my father gave it to her on their honeymoon."

"So I see I am to have an heirloom belonging to the Rochester ladies after all?"

"Yes!" He laughed, "Whether you like it or not, you are to have it. But I _am_ pleased you like it! I should not like you to accept it only under duress."

"I shall treasure it."

"Will you wear it for me, sometime soon? I want to put it in your hair myself." He reached out and smoothed back a tendril – a favorite caress.

"I will wear it tonight at dinner most happily."

"You will outshine everyone else in the room," he declared.

"Don't talk nonsense," she replied with a chiding tap on his shoulder. "Diana and Mary are far more beautiful than I."

"Not to me," he persisted. "You are the loveliest thing in my world."

She did not contradict him. She knew well enough – and he reminded her enough – of the effect her presence had on the void that surrounded him. All the beauty on earth was nothing to him but for her, and in being the voice that allowed him to perceive this beauty, she herself became beautiful too.

"I wish I could see you today," he murmured, kissing her under her jawbone, where he could feel her pulse, steady and gentle beneath his lips.

"I daresay I don't look any different from the last time you saw me, Darling."

His fingers traced the outline of her face, thumb smoothing her forehead, eyebrows, temples, stroking her throat where his lips had just been, then moving to her lips.

"No, you do look different," he said. "You are smiling."

"_Oh, Edward!" _

It pained her almost beyond endurance to think that his last sight of her was and might always remain that of her anguished, desperately sad but resolute face, that terrible evening of their parting in the Thornfield drawing room. It wrenched her heart to think that his last clear vision of her had been in the moment she was rending herself from him. And because she could not say more for the emotion swelling in her throat, she held him closer and kissed him again, and again, and again.

"Bless you, Darling – you mustn't cry. I did not mean to sadden you. It is our anniversary – you're meant to be happy today. I should be thought a wretched and unworthy husband indeed if it were known you'd been weeping on my account. Please don't cry anymore, Jane. Please – for me."

"I'm sorry," she said, when she again had command of her voice. "I'm not unhappy – it is only that I love you so, and I so wish – "

"Hush," he whispered. "Hush, Janet. I spoke foolishly just now. To hold you thus… it is enough."

But, though he held her as tightly as if she might flit away at any moment, she felt it was _not_ enough, and that on this of all days she ought to give him _something_: something that would – if only for moments – countermand the darkness that was his constant companion, the one blank even she could not fill. For several minutes she was still, holding him and letting him hold her, his whole frame enfolded around hers, her face upturned to his.

Rays escaping from between the heavy curtains made lines across the floor and glowed in streaks across their bare feet.

"Wait there a moment."

He let her go. She went to the windows and with a swift, sure movement flung the curtains back. Light – searing, piercing, moorland light, more pure and raw than any light at Ferndean – poured into the room. Squinting in the sudden brightness, she faced him once more, and, blinking moisture from her lashes, asked,

"Can you see me now?"

And he turned his veiled eyes to where she stood in the window, her slim figure sharply silhouetted by the light which streamed forth all around her, and he said,

"Yes – yes! I can see you."


	3. Part 3: The Confession

They were accosted on the stairs by Carlo, who greeted them with a happy whine and snuffed them eagerly, recognizing Jane's scent and soft, steady voice.

"Good morning, Carlo! You've come to fetch us down, have you?" With her free hand she stroked his silky ears as he acquainted himself with Edward, snuffing at his boots, the hem of his coat, passing over the empty cuff to the single, strong hand without any marked confusion or lingering. He soon deemed him unthreatening, and permitted the man to pat him, tail wagging as the man said in calm, low tones,

"Hello there, old fellow."

With Edward's fingers still in his fur, Carlo turned and led the way downstairs.

Seated at breakfast with Jane beside him and her cousins opposite, Edward spoke little and ate slowly, taking special care the food did not slide off his fork before it could reach his mouth, and wiping his lips often with the napkin. He was determined not to embarrass himself at the table by soiling his clothes or eating like an ogre. He could not cut his own meat, but he was damned if he was going to let that give them an excuse to pity him. He would show Mary and Diana that he could still dine like a gentleman.

If only it were possible to show them – in gestures as simple as lifting a utensil – how much he loved Jane, how he longed to care for her and bestow on her the attentions she deserved. Instead he could show only his gratitude for _her_ attentions – in a touch of her arm, a smile, a murmur of affection. He could not be to her the husband that St. John might have been, but if Jane's illustration of her cousin's character was to be believed, at least he could give her affection. At least he could give her love.

During the morning meal they went over their plans for the day ahead. Jane spoke eagerly of showing Edward all her old haunts, and as Diana and Mary had a letter to post in Morton, it was decided that the four of them would all set out together. When breakfast was over they returned briefly to their rooms to prepare for the outing. Once again inside their chamber, Jane began to speak excitedly about their walk and the places she intended to show him, not noticing, at first, her husband's silence as he stood tugging nervously at his cravat, face turned to the floor. But his muteness was unusual and she had not got so far as collecting her little purse when it struck her.

"Edward, what is it? Oh, look at your tie! You've twisted it in the most atrocious manner!" As she reached out and began straightening it, he began,

"Jane – Mary and Diana…"

"What about them?"

"Jane, do they –" He paused, not wanting to continue, hating himself for his terrible doubts, but something compelled the words. "Do they stare at me? Or can they even bear to look? Please, I must know."

"Oh, Darling!" She released his cravat and took his hand in hers. "They do not stare. They look at us both. When I speak they look at me, and they look at you when you speak, and they smiled at you when they saw you with Carlo, just now. He loved their brother, and misses him sorely. I think it made them glad to see him so content as he seemed with you."

Here was a revelation! A dog that loved both St. John and himself. A faithful animal that made no distinction between a graceful, statuesque young parson, and a swarthy, sightless landowner nearing middle-age. Perhaps, after all, there was a chance for reconciliation with his one-time rival. Perhaps this was its beginning. Stranger things had happened. Jane had returned to him. Anything was possible. Yet still he wavered.

"Then, I do not – offend them? My appearance does not unsettle them?" He had to be sure.

"No, Edward." Then she smiled, prodding his shoulder playfully. "You flatter yourself if you believe you have so strong an effect."

He knew she was teasing him, and he smiled wanly at her words, but there was one more thing he had to know.

"You pronounced me hideous a year ago," he persisted. "Tell me –" lifting his hand to the scar that cut across his face, "is it truly so bad?" They had avoided talking about his appearance over the past year. Jane had, from time to time, initiated a haircut, and in the first weeks of their union had applied salve to the burns on his forehead and upper body to encourage healing, but her ministrations had been wordless and never discussed between them.

Jane looked at him and tried to separate her regard – for her love made him beautiful to her – from the cold surveillance that would allow her to see him as others saw him.

"The scar is fading," she said at last. "The burn mark is still rough and will probably remain so, but the color is normal, no longer red and angry. And your eyebrows are black and full, as fine as they ever were."

"And the eye?"

"It is dark, and there is some distortion around the iris. The lid cannot open much, so it is difficult to notice these details from a distance. It is a sad sight, Darling, but there is nothing to offend."

He had never been handsome, and consequently had never given much thought to his appearance beyond basic physical upkeep, cleanliness, and respectable attire. If he had been a poor man, he might have considered his dark complexion and harsh features a curse, but after his wealth and old family name, his want of beauty mattered little. He had always been able to live comfortably and keep the sort of company he wished, and if the girls he'd taken to his bedchamber had loved his purse more than his face, his physical pleasures had not been lessened on account. But when he met Jane, and came to know her intelligence, her goodness and purity, he longed to appear more pleasing. He felt that his appearance reflected his _impurity_, his sins, his recklessness. Yet somehow she had seen past all that, into the innermost depths of his soul, to the vulnerable core – the only part of him that could still claim stainlessness. And now, when he was a hundred times more ugly, when he had not even his able-bodiedness to recommend him, she still saw past the battered façade, into the heart that pulsed with love for her.

"Thank you, Janet." He spoke no more, but she saw a release of tension in his frame, a smoothing in his furrowed brow: this doubt, at least, was eased. Standing on tiptoe, she brushed her lips softly against his. They readied themselves quickly and ten minutes later, left the house.

The way to Morton was a joy-filled one, the cousins laughing, reminiscing, exchanging banter. The sun shone down on them as they rambled over the heath, along the familiar path Jane had trodden with Mary and Diana, other times with St. John, and still other times entirely alone with only her thoughts for company. They parted at the edge of town, and Jane and Edward continued on in the direction of the schoolhouse.

"How good it is to be here once more, all together," Jane said to him, the glow in her voice reflecting her great happiness. "My cousins and I used to walk this way so often, always talking, looking out for birds or for little flowers to bring home to put in the parlor and sketch. I remember one day – while I was busy studying languages, and Diana asked me in German what I had seen on my walk that morning – and I could only remember the Hindustanee word for _flower_. How she laughed!"

"And Rivers? Was he amused too?" Edward's voice was flat and Jane realized with a pang that she had painted a pretty picture of perfect contentment… without him. She held his arm more tightly, and continued in a quieter tone,

"Another day, one morning when we were studying the past-tense, Diana asked me what dreams I'd had." She paused, swallowed, even the memory enough to make her eyes sting and her heart ache. "And I told her I had had no dreams, because I could not tell her that, all the night, I'd dreamt of only you."

"Jane." His own arm tightened around her as she went on in a murmur,

"You were always with me in those days, Edward. I never walked out, but I imagined you walking just behind me. I never shut my eyes, but your face was there. Sometimes I woke in the morning still believing I was in your arms." Her voice had become a whisper, and he stopped on the path and pulled her against him, cursing himself for bringing back this pain.

"You are, my darling. You are."

"Miss Elliot!"

Jane turned at the girlish cry, and saw that they had reached the little dell where the schoolhouse stood, just below them. The door was flung open and a girl – none other than her little helper, Alice – was scrambling up the hill toward her.

"Alice!"

"Oh, it _is_ you, Miss Elliot!" Jane slipped out of Edward's embrace – an effortless action, for he had gone still as a statue at the mention of her alias – and approached the child in a turmoil of emotion, heart lurching with guilt at her husband's brutally sudden discovery of the means to her concealment from him, but also conscious that she had to appear in command for the sake of her former pupil.

"Why Alice, how you've grown!" she said after accepting the eager embrace and kisses the little girl had bestowed on her.

"Yes Miss, I'm as tall as you are, nearly."

"Yes, and no doubt you shall grow taller still. You look very well."

"So do you, Miss."

"Now tell me, do you still attend school?"

Alice answered dutifully that she did, that she had risen to the top of the class, and that she now helped the new schoolmistress to tutor the younger girls. Jane expressed a wish to meet the new teacher, but was informed that she had gone away to another part of the county for a few days to visit some friends. Alice had been finishing with the tidying up when she'd seen Jane through the window.

"Are you back in Morton to stay, Miss Elliot? Perhaps you might teach us again."

"No, Alice, I am only here to visit for a few days. And I am not called 'Miss Elliot' any longer," with a backward glance at Edward. "I am Mrs. Rochester now."

"Oh! Congratulations, Miss!" The girl's eyes grew very wide and she looked at Edward, still standing where Jane had left him, and curtsied politely at him, murmuring, "sir," in a childish, awkward fashion which was exacerbated by confusion when he did not return her acknowledgement. Jane saved them both from further embarrassment by turning to Edward and announcing,

"Darling, here is a friend who has found me – Alice, my little pupil whom I've told you of."

And if he had not had the year of her love to smooth away his bitterness, he might have muttered the likelihood of it being shortly known over the whole moor that Morton's young schoolmistress – who had such talent, who had shown such promise – had relinquished everything and married a blind man twice her age. But he _had_ had her love. He had it now, even as they stood slightly apart, no part of her touching him. He was so certain of her heart's constancy that the space between them was rendered as meaningless as if it didn't exist at all. And so he closed his ears to the taunting, gossipy echoes of disappointment and disapproval in his head, and, turning his face to where he believed the little girl was standing, greeted her in the most gracious tones he could summon.

Jane talked with her pupil a few minutes more until Alice was obliged to return home and help with the day's chores. They parted with earnest well-wishes, and then she and Edward were again alone. As they wandered down to make a circuit of her old abode, Jane was struck suddenly by the malleability of her dreams, and how Edward's presence in her life had set them shifting, expanding, reforming. A quiet schoolhouse where she could keep herself, a servant to no one but God: once, that was all she had hoped for from life. In those days, when the future was all vague haze and obscurity, she had not thought of marriage, or if she had, it had been of a union with some respectable yeoman farmer or perhaps a kind clergyman who would not mind about her plainness and lack of relations. She had not hoped for earthly bliss; reasonable contentment, that was the farthest extent of her yearnings. She had never hoped for love.

She had sampled the first dream, for a time. Living humbly as Morton's schoolmistress, she had known the daily trials and seen the daily successes of her labors. And if she had not known Edward Rochester's love, that life would have been enough for her. But she _had_ known his love, and after it, try as she had done to forget it, the old dream had lost its attraction, and the new one: loving him, living with him, being his wife, seemed to her unattainable. Yet here she was – in the place where she'd believed all her dreams withered and wintered over – with a year of blissful union already behind her and him at her side, all dreams fulfilled. As she stood peering in one of the windows, making out the little room that had been hers, the very bed she had slept in, he asked,

"Is it strange to you, being here again?"

She looked at him, nodded.

"It is wondrous: you are with me, and yet I am awake."

They ate the wayfarer's lunch that Hannah had packed for them beside a waterfall where Jane had sometimes sat, tucked into a hillside and sheltered by a few rare trees. Sitting together on a broad, flat stone, they divided the bread and cheese between them and bit into their apples with relish, laughing as the juice trickled inelegantly down their chins. Afterwards, satisfied by this simple fare, they sat for several moments in companionable silence, cooling their hands in the trickling water from the stream, tangling their fingers together beneath the flowing surface.

"Edward, there is something I must confess to you."

"Confess?" She had truly caught him off guard; surprise colored his voice. "Whatever can you mean, Jane?"

She summoned courage, looking full into his waiting face. "Last year you spoke to me of something – something we have not talked of since. You spoke of a night – before my return – on which you called out to me, and heard my voice answer."

"Yes! I have thought often of that night, though – and you must forgive me for this, my dear – I have not mentioned it for fear of alarming you. It was so peculiar, you understand, so utterly inexplicable – and yet I know with all my soul that it truly happened. It _was_ your voice I heard."

"I believe you, Darling – never fear that I doubt you."

"Then what is it? If the idea awes or frightens you, let us speak of other things."

"No, it isn't that." She breathed deeply and took his hand, as though to borrow his strength.

"I heard you calling that night… and I answered."

For a few moments he went completely still, and she felt a pang that she had erred in telling him, that the shock might have come too strong. But then he spoke, and his voice was quite steady.

"You were awake?"

"Yes."

"And you were out of doors?"

"No, not at first." Despite her desire to keep nothing more from him, she could not bring herself to describe the complete circumstances in which she had received his summons – that she had been in St. John's arms, on the point of relinquishing herself to his will by becoming his wife. To speak in such excruciating detail would only cause Edward unnecessary pain.

"I was in the parlor when I heard you – more as if your voice was within me than without – but afterward I ran out into the garden."

"And it was there that you answered?"

"Yes."

He fell silent again and seemed to contemplate her words. His face bore neither the marks of depression nor of uplifting revelation, and again she began to wonder whether her confession had been unwise.

"Are you angry with me for waiting so long to tell you? Does it… change everything?" His features softened.

"No." Slowly he brought her hand to his lips. "No, it changes nothing."

She went as still as he had been a minute before, temporarily transfixed by relief. Tears pooled in her eyes before streaming in trails down her cheeks. Ever aware of her, he caught the meaning of her silence and his sensitive fingers sought her face, found the dampness.

"Did you fear that it would?" He asked, brushing away her tears, moved to sudden concern by her emotion. "Were you afraid I should love you less?"

Impossible for her to express her feelings – the anxiety she had felt for his impressionable mind, the further worry over his reaction to this secret she had kept from him for so long, not revealing it until they had been married a year and a day – both were of a nature ill-suited to lending itself to words. Fears had no place in their marriage, yet in spite of herself she had been afraid; and she could not tell him that. For her to express to him her admission of even the tiniest pinprick of doubt would be to risk a flood. And so she forced back the tears, stroking the back of his hand – still cupping her face – with hers, and with her long burden at last lifted from her, spoke with fervent reassurance,

"I cannot say what it was I feared, but it was not the loss of your love. I do not doubt your love."

"I shall never give you cause to."

For Edward, the confession changed nothing. He had spoken true. Though society might condemn his past, might sneer at his injuries and his dependence, might scorn his choice of wife, he needed no revelation, no further proof than the continued beating of his own heart that God sanctioned his union with Jane. It had been tried and tested, but so strong was their bond that neither calamity nor despair, distance nor devastation, could rend it. Let men say what they may; their two souls understood one another, and when he had cried out to her, and she had answered.

The afternoon was waning, and they knew they would be expected back at the cottage soon, but there was still one place Jane wanted to visit again – a great crag atop a hill, from which one could gaze out over the whole moor, with the wind sweeping by in such majesty one felt a part of both heaven and earth. She had ventured there only once, during a time of such deep despair, such longing for the one she loved, that she could only find respite in bodily exertion, in the ferocity of the raw elements. Now, on this calm, blessed day – the day of her anniversary, which she had spent not pining for her lost beloved, but walking for hours by his side, touching him, hearing his voice – she wanted to ascend the great stone again, to gaze upon the vista once more and feel – stronger than any tempest – her own full heart within her, beating in time with his.

They reached the crag as the light was turning golden. She had not remembered the stone face being so steep or the climb so cumbersome, and began to suggest that, perhaps, if he felt himself unequal to the endeavor, they should abandon the idea and return to the cottage. But he was adamant, assuring her that he was capable of this small feat, that he trusted her to guide him up.

As he reached for her hand he remembered a time when, with a quarter of his present effort, he had scaled Vesuvius, had rambled along Alpine trails utterly alone, solely dependent on his own deftness and strength. He thought of the great, solitary heights he had reached, gazing down upon the earth like a god – triumphs which other young men might have celebrated with exultant whoops, arms flung wide in gestures of possession. But Edward had stood atop mountains and grinned in a bitter, careless way, thinking that even here – _even here_, amid the world's most remote, most exquisite natural splendor – he was not rid of his curse. All the beauty on earth could not cleanse him, and though he traveled far, farther than any of his family had gone before him, the world's wonders had offered him no respite in his burdened loneliness.

Now – though he could not see, though he climbed the crag in a crawling, groping, graceless manner, Jane helping him at every step – he felt anticipation swelling in his breast, felt at last that imminent triumph that had so long eluded him. And when finally they stood together at the summit with the moor rolling out beneath them, and the light so bright even he could see it, and Jane's small, warm hand in his, Edward knew that this was the truest beauty there was.

As she described the sky to him – the deepest, purest azure that could be found on earth, dappled in places by smoky wisps of cloud like veils – and he held the image in his mind, he was struck anew with the wonder of her love and the depth of her sacrifice.

"All this – it could have been yours."

"I know." She clasped her arms around him, leaning her head against his breast, so close she could hear his heart beating, and said, "But I gave it up for you. I would give it up a thousand times over, for you."

That night they made love in the narrow bed with a tenderness that defied the materiality of flesh and bone, their two spirits moving, twining together, fusing as one.


End file.
